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There. You've been warned.

24 December 2007

Sunday was a day of firsts, but we'll get to that later. Driving up US26 in the rain this morning, I got closer and closer to Government Camp, and the rain hadn't changed to snow. Disturbed's "Stricken" (thanks, Guitar Hero III) crunched from the speakers as the miles ticked by, and still no snow. Aw crap, I thought, this isn't what I spent all week dreaming about. I pulled into Govy and still not snowing. Chatted with some patrollers and apprentices in the Govy building, then off to the Palace to prepare for the day's slog.

First in (after the hill captain) meant getting the choice assignment - opening RC. After the morning briefing, I hitched a snow-mo ride with the head pro patroller, set a "Trails Merging" fence, a "Slow" sign, then headed up to RC to open up. Trudge out to the snow stake to get the depth, clear off sleds, start the log, all that good crap. The best part was after getting wet doing all the outside stuff, I got to sit in the RC building and warm up/dry off for a couple hours before having a shift with the grueling duty of "unassigned".

The "what's where" board at RC. Not to scale.

I got to take some runs in the slop 'n' glop before heading down to the ticket office to get my season pass. It was decent on some of the ungroomed stuff on upper bowl, kinda like spring conditions. But the less-tracked stuff was actually a pain in the ass to ski, so I stayed out of it.

After lunch, I had the Cascade assignment, and instead of camping out in the east side lodge, I made runs. Lots of 'em. Helped a kid get unstuck from the glop off to the side of Raceway, watched the High School ski camp kids bang through their training courses, and got pretty well soaked. I chatted with a couple of the racer kids, offering up some tips from what I saw of them on the course, and made more runs. My relief showed up, and off I went to RC to dry out and warm up.

I wasn't up there long enough to get totally dry before getting called out on a case - my first sled-running of the season. It was a guy with a tweaked knee, so we put him in a J-splint and took him to the bottom of Multorpor, where we got a snowmobile tow (first time I'd done that with a toboggan) over to the east side first aid room. Another patroller was first responder, so I got to re-pack the sled and get it back on the hill.

Lucky for me, one of the pro patrollers showed up with a snowmobile and towed the toboggan and me back over to the lift to put it back into service. It's a pretty flat traverse, and one I've made several times with an empty sled, but I was glad to have the tow. By the time I reached the top of Multorpor, we'd been released for the day, so I rocketed down the virtually empty hill, caught the handle tow, then traversed back to the Palace.

Hopefully, this will have been the last rainy patrol day for a while. I wanted to take more pictures.

And ski better snow.

Dinner was at the Highland Pub, where I tried the Patty Melt (yum) and had their Sleepy Hollow Nut Brown, on nitro. Just what I needed after a day in the slop at Ski Bowl. Had a Kind Neighbor Rye Alt after that, and shared some of B's Hummus Plate. Back home to play some Guitar Hero III, then blog.